Aggression in Social Psychology

Aggression in Social Psychology

1. SOCIAL LEARNING APPROACH CONTENTS Aggression Types Theories Influence on aggression Group influence and predictions of aggression Article References

2. AGGRESSION

3. AGGRESSION Definition of Aggression : Physical and verbal behavior Intended to hurt someone . It includes slap , insult , kicks and even gossips . It excludes unintentional harm such as auto accidents . It also excludes actions that may involve pain such as surgery, dental treatment . Example : A terrorist who kills the civilians to gain political exposure.

4. it springs from anger and it’s goal is to injure . It is impulsive and emotional out brust Hostile Aggression is “hot”. Example : Most instances of road rage fall into the category of hostile aggression Hostile Aggression: TYPES OF AGGRESSION

5. Its aim to injure also but in some other way . Instrumental aggression is more aligned with bullying behaviors where the threats, mocking and violence are used by the bully to instil a sense of fear or embarrassment in their victim . It is learned behavior. It is cold Example : Someone Sticks a gun in your face and demand your wallet. They are using aggression as a tool to get what they want INSTRUMENTAL AGGRESSION

6. Theories of aggression Instinct theory of aggression Aggression is a natural response to the frustration. Aggression is a learned behavior

7. INSTINCT THEORY OF AGGRESSION It was proposed by Sigmund Frued in 1927 . Frued said that there are two instincts exist in human beings . i.e Erose that is life instincts and thenatose that is death or destructive instinct . Human behavior including aggression Orginates from Interaction of these two forces . According to this theory aggression orignates primarily from redirection of self destructive instinct away from self while directed towards other.

8. Thenatose is unrestrained and indulge in self destruction through the displacement the energy of thenatose is directed towards other in the form of aggression Instinct theory said that the aggression is inherited and biological in nature that can’t be completely eliminated from human behavior but can be reduced by indulging advanture sports like karate and boxing.

9. KONARD LORENZ VIEW Konard Lorenz view: Lorenz was an animal behavior expert, Lorenz considered the aggression as a “adaptive rather than self destructive” , in the humans as well as in animals. In the opinion of Konard Lorenz aggression, which causes physical harm to others starts from fighting instincts that the human beings share with others .

10. AGGRESSION AS A RESPONSE To THE FRUSTRATION Frustration Aggression theory deals that frustration triggers a readiness to aggress . Frustration always leads to some form of aggression (John Dollar and his colleagues. Frustration is any thing that blocks our attaining. Frustration grows when our motivation to achieve a goal is very strong and when expect statisfection when blocking is complete.

11. CLASSICAL FRUSTRATION AGGRESSION THEORY Frustration creates motivation to aggress. Fear of punishment or disapproval for aggression against the source of frustration may cause the aggressive derive to be displaced against some other target or even redirected against oneself ( Dollar and others 1939and Miller 1941)

12. FRUSTRATION AGGRESSION THEORY REVISED Leonard Berkowitz revised the Frustration aggression theory (Leonard Berkowitz1978-1989) Berkowitz theorized that Frustration produces anger , an emotional readiness to aggress. In this revised formulation people learn through experience to respond to Frustration with aggressive or non aggressive responses.

13. AGGRESSION AS LEARNED SOCIAL BEHAVIOR Social learning theory : We learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded and punished. The Rewards of Aggression: By experience and by observing others we learn that aggression often pays . Children can be thought to behave aggressively through rewarding aggressive behavior (Patterson and others 1991).

14. In addition , child leran to discriminate between situations where the aggression has desirable consequences or not .

15. OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING Albert Bandura (1997) proposed that social behaviors, including aggression, could be learned through observing and imitating others. In his classic experiment , children observed a film of an actor hitting a “ Bobo Doll” in several ways . Children later imitated that behavior by hitting the Bobo Doll in same way .

16. Bandura hypothesized that the way the people mentally construct their experience is crucial . People may see one person hit another , but will also decide how competent they feel to do the same and will make assumptions about what constitutes a normal way to behave when someone provokes you . In this way , making inferences about observed aggression not only increases likelihood of imitating it , but also range of situations to which that responses might be generalized it . (Bandura 1986)

17. People sometimes imitate aggressive models, especially aggressive behavior is rewarded by or carried out by a person who is heroic admired of high status and attractive.

18. Influences on aggression Some influences of aggression are Aversive incidents Arousal The media The group context

19. AVERSIVE INCIDENTS Definition: “ Aversive are unpleasant stimuli that induce changes in behavior via negative reinforcement or positive punishment.” There are some type of aversive experiences: Pain Uncomfortable heat An attack overcrowding

20. PAIN: Researcher Nathan Azrin (1967) was doing experiment with laboratory rats in a cage wired to deliver electric shock to animals feet. He wanted to know that if switching off the shocks would reinforce two rats positive interaction with each other. He planned to turn on shock and then once the rat approached each other , cut off the pain. To his great surprise the experiment proved impossible.

21. UNCOMFORTABLE HEAT People have theorized for centuries about the effect of climate on human action. Climate remains relatively steady while cultural traits behavior change over the time. Temporary climate variation can affect behavior. Offensive odours,cigraette smoke, air pollution linked with aggressive behaviors'.

22. William Griffitt (1970) found that compared two students who answered their question paper in normal temperature ,those who did so in an uncomfortable hot room over (90?F). Reported feeling more tired and aggressive and expressed more hostility toward a stranger. So William experiment proved that uncomfortable heat increases aggression.

23. ATTACK Being attacked or insulted by another is especially conducive to aggression. In (1985) Toshihiro kambara confirm, that intentional attacks breed retaliatory attacks. One person competes with another in reaction time contest. Winner also chooses how much shock given to looser that he left the game.

24. OVERCROWDING Definition: the amount of space available is less than desired, and purely physical indices of physical space such as density.  Crowding illustrates how the physical environment can affect human behavior. The most common reaction to crowding is stress, anxiety and frustration about restricted behavioral options. Our choices of what, where, and when we do things are constrained.

25. For example: In the United States it have found that children and adolescents who live in more crowded homes, independent of socioeconomic status, are less likely to persist on challenging puzzles, giving up sooner than those living under uncrowned conditions.

26. AROUSAL DEFINITION: Arousal  is the physiological and  psychological  state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. Arousal means wired for an action. For example: presence of gun can automatically activates aggression related thoughts and increase aggressive behavior. High arousal impairs the cognitive control of aggression , as does alcohol.

27. LIE DETECTION TEST DEFINITION: A lie detector test measures various arousal such as heart rate, breathing rate, and perspiration. This test is used to estimate that (which is an inconsistency between what is true and what is reported to be true) produces arousal that can be detected by the machine For example: a person may be aroused because they are lying, or they may experience arousal because they are worried that they are accused of committing a crime.

28. MEDIA INFLUENCES Media  produces long-term  effects  via several types of learning processes leading to the   aggressive  scripts,  aggression -supporting beliefs about social behavior, and by reducing individuals' normal negative emotional responses . fMRI(functional Magnetic Resonance Center) have shown that watching violent programs on media can control your part of brain and increases the level of aggression.

29. Media influences Some media influences are: Pornography and sexual violence Television Video games

30. PORNOGRAPHY AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE The phrase “pornography of violence, "first time used in 1950s. DEFINITION: It referred to visual or written matter designed or intended to cause sexual arousal. A correlation studies evidence suggest that pornography is a men's actual aggression toward women. In (1985)John Court noted that pornography(rapes) rate sharply increases during 1960s and 1970s.

31. TELEVISION Extensive viewing of  television violence  by children  causes  greater aggressiveness. Sometimes, watching a single  violent  program can increase aggression level. To identify that how television increases the aggression an experiment was conducted by Huesmann and his colleagues in 1977. The result of that experiment was that, while aggressive children may choose to watch more violent TV programming, that the aggression level because they start to follow this violent character.

32. EFFECT ON ADULTS: Gender differences were also observed in the expression of aggression. This experiments shows that specifically, men were more likely to engage in serious physical aggression and criminality, whereas women were more likely to engage in forms of indirect aggression. Men and women reported similar frequencies of engaging in verbal aggression, general aggression, and aggression toward spouses.

33. VIDEO GAMES Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or PUBG can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior in actual life. A experiment was conducted by the American Psychological Association's (APA)  it found that: One study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent games. "The other study reveals that even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants."

34. GROUP INFLUENCE : Mcch aggression is committed by group. Circumstances that provoke individuals may also provoke groups. (Jacquelyn Gaebelein and Anthony Mander, 1978) Diffusing Responsibility (Brian Mullen, 1986) Polarizing Action
Social Contagion (Lagerspetz & others, 1982) Collective mentality.

35. PREDICTING AGGRESSION: Male Actors
Alcohol use
Violence viewing
Anonymity
Provocation
Presence of weapon
Group interaction

36. CATHARSIS Aristotle: purge by experiencing Release of aggressive feelings through expression in non harmful ways. For example, hitting pillow etc. Erotica provide for sexual impulses Hostility breed more hostility (Ebbe Ebbeson, 1975)

37. PROBLEMS WITH CATHARSIS: Does not change aggression provoking circumstances
Does not prevent aggressive urges from arising
Overtime, it actually intensifies rather than diminishing aggression
Effect can be temporary and don’t tackle underlying causes of aggression. (Somer M)

38. CONCLUSION Catharsis is not effective method as it used to be. (Somer M)

39. SOCIAL LEARNING APPROACH Reward cooperative, non-aggressive behaviour (R.A. Baron, 1977) Reducing aversive stimulation
Modeling and rewarding sensitivity and cooperation (Goldstein & others, 1998) Reduce violence in media (Robinson & others, 2001) Reduce availability of weapon ( Diener & Crandall, 1979) Eliciting reaction incompatible with aggression

40. article

41. ARTICLE’S SUBJECT: HUMAN AGGRESSION Craig A. Anderson and Brad J. Bushman

42. ABSTRACT Research on human aggression has progressed to a point at which a unifying framework is needed. Major domain-limited theories of aggression include:
cognitive neoassociation, social learning, social interaction, script, and excitation trans-fer theories. Using the general aggression model (GAM ), this review posits cognition, affect, and arousal to mediate the effects of situational and personological variables on aggression. The review also organizes recent theories of the development and per-sistence of aggressive personality.

43. Personality is conceptualized as a set of stable knowledge structures that individuals use to interpret events in their social world and to guide their behavior. In addition to organizing what is already known about human aggression,
this review, using the GAM framework, also serves the heuristic function of suggesting what research is needed to fill in theoretical gaps and can be used to create and test interventions for reducing aggression.

44. INTRODUCTION In its most extreme forms, aggression is human tragedy unsurpassed. Hopes that the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust would produce a worldwide revul-sion against killing have been dashed. Since World War II, homicide rates have actually increased rather than decreased in a number of industrialized countries, most notably the United States. Thus, in recent years there has been renewed interest in learning why humans sometimes behave aggressively.

45. Subsequent sections address:
A)Domain specific theories of aggression ON BASIS OF GAM
C)Outcomes

46. CURRENT STUDIES The purpose of this study was to examine which theories are utilized explicitly in the studies on Human aggression. Bushman & Anderson 2001 give this framework.
Five main theories of aggression guide most current research. The theories them-selves overlap considerably, which is what instigated early attempts to integrate them into a broader framework. (Anderson et al. 1995, 1996a).

47. DOMAIN SPECIFIC THEORIES OF AGGRESSION . Cognitive Neoassociation Theory Social Learning Theory Script theory Excitation transfer theory Social interaction therory

48. COGNITIVE NEOASSOCIATION THEORY In cognitive neoassociation theory, aggressive thoughts, emotions, and behav-ioral tendencies are linked together in memory (Collins & Loftus 1975)

49. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY According to social learning theories, people acquire aggressive responses the same way they acquire other complex forms of social behavior—either by direct experience or by observing others. (Bandura 1983, 2001; Mischel 1973, 1999; Mischel & Shoda 1995)

50. SCRIPT THEORY Huesmann proposed that when children observe violence in the mass media, they learn aggressive scripts. Scripts define situations and guide behavior: The person first selects a script to represent the situation and then assumes a role in the script.
Huesmann (1986, 1998)

51. EXCITATION TRANSFER THEORY It notes that physiological arousal dissipates slowly. If two arousing events are separated by a short amount of time,
arousal from the first event may be misattributed to the second event. If the second event is related to anger, then the additional arousal should make the person
even angrier (Zillmann 1983)

52. SOCIAL INTERACTION THEORY Social interaction theory interprets aggressive behavior (or coercive actions) as social influence behavior, i.e., an actor uses coercive actions to produce some change in the target’s behavior. Coercive actions can be used by an actor to obtain something of value (e.g., information, money, goods, sex, services, safety )

53. MERITS This research presents the most recent version of our integrative framework, called the general aggression model (GAM).
This general model has at least four advantages over smaller domain theories.
It is more parsimonious than the set of existing mini-theories.
It better explains aggressive acts that are based on multiple motives, e.g., both instrumental and affect-based aggression (Bushman & Anderson 2001).

54. It will aid in the development of more comprehensive interventions designed to treat individuals who are chronically aggressive; many current treatment attempts fail because they focus on only one specific type of aggression. (Tate et al. 1995) It provides broader insights about child rearing and development issues, thus enabling parents, teachers, and public policy makers to make better decisions about child-rearing practices. (Zigler et al. 1992).

55. RESULT We believe that GAM provides a useful integrative framework for domainspecific theories of aggression, transforming a heap of stones into a house.
IT:
develop out of experience;
influence perception at multiple levels, from basic visual patterns to complex behavioral sequences;
can become automatized with use; (d) can contain (or are linked to) affective states, behavioral programs, and beliefs; and € are used to guide people’s interpretations and behavioral responses to their social (and physical) environment.

56. REFERENCES Bechtel, R. B. (1997). Environment and behavior. David –G- Mayers . Social Psychology-10 th edition. Lenoir-Rhyne College,  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,  Vol. 78, No. 4. Foster, C. A., Witcher, B. S., Campbell, W. K., & Green, J. D. (1998). Arousal and attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 86-101. Anderson CA, Anderson KB , Dorr N , DeNeve KM, Flanagan M.2000. Temperature and aggression. In Advances in experimental social psychology, Ed. M Zanna , 32:63_133.New yark Acedemic .